June 27, 2006
Clay to Dust
The music in my head stretches through my hair, webs upward and I grow taller with it, trying to catch up. The beat of another tomorrow chokes me out of silence, humming in tune with the moving air. The sounds grow stronger, more insistent, and then they spread as a blanket, drowning the wind.
Time stops.
It freezes over its tracks, liquid no more; waiting, luring, silent. I stand in an immeasurable void with blue-printed footsteps.
A transparent path curls out from under Time, whirls around me; ruffling, it crawls around my feet in lazy swirls. I am surrounded by a thousand tentative vibrations.
The path snarls: Time stopped. Can you catch up now?
I cover my ears and hum my name, over and over. To remember. To stay. But the name gets caught in echo and I forget after all.
I am a half-empty guilt equation, pulling vision into parallel lines of choice and defeat, feeding on patience and the sound of your clenched teeth: I never… I draw lines on the subterranean surface of Time, file your shape into it, break chips off its edge and polish features with guarded fingertips.
I give you away. Here.
Time starts to move, begins to nudge my working fingers with its threads and soak my toes in a messy flow, melting shapes until they steam. It gets under my fingernails, beneath my hair and forms dewdrops on my lashes. I dance in puddles, dripping, soaked. It’s so hot. Time yanks my reason, steals the edge and your face, and roars upwards, pulling loose each safety valve. I am an explosion, born of someone else’s body and mine, and a little careless chemistry.
From clay to dust the moment goes.